pcbnew -> eeschema cross probe not working after eeschema probe

[Seth Hillbrand]

This breaks with some regularity but seems to work correctly for many cases.

Steps:
1) Start pcbnew/eeschema with the video project
2) Start the highlight net tool in both
3) In eeschema, go into the esvideo.sh sheet and hightlight the GREEN net (B7)
4) Switch to pcbnew, clear the highlight and try to highlight a different net
 - This does not change the eeschema highlight
5) Switch to eeschema, clear the highlight and switch back to pcbnew, highlight a new net
 - This does not highlight anything in eeschema.

Application: Eeschema
Version: (5.1.0-1277-g16f672a9b), release build
Libraries:
    wxWidgets 3.0.4
    libcurl/7.64.0 OpenSSL/1.1.1c zlib/1.2.11 libidn2/2.0.5 libpsl/0.20.2 (+libidn2/2.0.5) libssh2/1.8.0 nghttp2/1.36.0 librtmp/2.3
Platform: Linux 4.19.0-5-amd64 x86_64, 64 bit, Little endian, wxGTK
Build Info:
    wxWidgets: 3.0.4 (wchar_t,wx containers,compatible with 2.8) GTK+ 3.24
    Boost: 1.67.0
    OpenCASCADE Community Edition: 6.9.1
    Curl: 7.64.0
    Compiler: GCC 8.3.0 with C++ ABI 1013

Build settings:
    KICAD_SCRIPTING=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_MODULES=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_PYTHON3=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON_PHOENIX=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_ACTION_MENU=ON
    BUILD_GITHUB_PLUGIN=ON
    KICAD_USE_OCE=ON
    KICAD_USE_OCC=OFF
    KICAD_SPICE=ON

[Jeff Young (jeyjey)]

I think this is fixed. I did a bunch of work in this area, but from another bug report so I didn't try to reproduce this first.

[Seth Hillbrand (sethh)]

It's... different now. The highlight doesn't switch sheets for every net. Only some.

I don't understand the thinking behind selecting symbols in eeschema instead of highlighting. We've always highlighted between cross-probes. It appears we are still highlighting pins/pads but now selecting symbols/footprints? This feels incorrect.

Also, now selecting a symbol in Eeschema centers the symbol instead of just selecting.

Sorry for jumbling these up. They all seem to stem from the same commit

[Jeff Young (jeyjey)]

It all started with https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1827853, which (rightly) complained that we highlighted in eeschema but selected in pcbnew. So I sent out an email (https://lists.launchpad.net/kicad-developers/msg40530.html) and the consensus was to unify on highlighting.

That turned out to be sub-optimal because pcbnew's highlighting is virtually indistinguishable from selecting, which resulted in https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1836600. That bug requested unifying on selection even aside from the highlight shortcomings.

Given that I don't think you can always reason through these things, I thought I'd try switching to unifying on selection so we can see how it feels.

It has issues too. We don't have a way to select pins, so when clicking on a pad in pcbnew we have to fall back to highlighting the pin in eeschema. Also, the highlight visual in eeschema isn't terribly noticeable (a problem in its own right). The centering helps a bit (and is also now consistent with pcbnew).

I think we should give it a bit longer before we pick a strategy. We're going to have to do some work to smooth things out with either one.

(Note that I work on a laptop which doesn't have a big enough screen to view both frames at one time, so I have no dog in this hunt.)

[Seth Hillbrand (sethh)]

Got it. I recall seeing Wayne's response in that and figured it was settled that we highlighted not selected.

I filter Art's messages as I don't have the bandwidth to deal with his type of "feedback", so I didn't notice that report. Maybe the solution is to dim background on highlight in eeschema to be consistent?

[Seth Hillbrand (sethh)]

@Jeff-

Trying to work further with this and it's very problematic to have selection here. With multi-unit symbols, I cannot select the non-A unit in the schematic to move it (when pcbnew is open). Selection focuses back to unit A.

Would you mind if we revert that commit until we figure out what we want to do with it?

[Jeff Young (jeyjey)]

@Seth,

It looks like the worst issues are with selection on the Eeschema side, and highlighting on the Pcbnew side. So I think the best short-term answer is to go back to being inconsistent.